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“Institutions are much more than bricks and mortar,” Dean Katepalli Sreenivasan said on September 8, at a gathering in honor of the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering’s newest faculty members. “They are also made of people and ideas. Thanks in part to them,” Sreenivasan said, “we are going to be an even more vibrant, interesting, and exciting place.”

In 2006, when Erich Kunhardt was named provost and chief academic officer of what was then called Polytechnic University, a cover story in Cable trumpeted, “New Provost to Spur Innovation and Invention at Poly.” Kunhardt, who had earned a doctoral degree in Electrophysics from the school exactly three decades earlier, told the reporter, “I want to create a distinctive community of higher learning that values and nurtures creativity—in particular inventiveness and innovation.”

Maurizio Porfiri, associate professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering's Outstanding Young Alumnus Award for his career achievements. Porfiri earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering mechanics from Virginia Tech in 2000 and 2005, respectively.

Richard E. Wener, a professor of environmental psychology in the Department of Technology, Culture and Society, has significantly furthered our ability to build more humane, just, and functional institutions, and his book, The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and Jails: Creating Humane Spaces in Secure Settings, is considered the seminal work on the topic. He was recently honored with the 2013 Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Career Award, in recognition of his substantial contributions to the discipline.

Nikhil Gupta, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, has been selected as the recipient of the ASM International Silver Medal, which recognizes a career of distinguished contributions in the field of materials science and engineering and service to the profession. Gupta’s work focuses on lightweight materials with high damage tolerance for helmets,body armor and vehicle structures—research with enormous potential for making those products not only lighter but safer.

The square-wheeled bicycles were a big hit. As NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering alumni and their families discovered during a visit to New York City’s Museum of Mathematics on June 21, square wheels can roll smoothly if they travel over inverted catenaries--evenly spaced bumps of just the right shape. The bikes, however, were just one of the many attractions the School of Engineering group enjoyed.